If you have been driving around Moscow -- no, let me rephrase that: If you have been trying to drive around Moscow this December, but instead have been whiling away the hours in traffic jams, it's not your imagination.

Energy Sector Investment President Vladimir Putin called on the government to boost the attractiveness of the nation's energy industry for foreign investors, Interfax reported. Russia should improve the legal environment and the tax regime for the energy industry, Putin said at a meeting with the Security Council on Thursday, the news agency said. Putin also said that ""large-scale"" work needed to be undertaken to develop Russia's transport infrastructure to supply foreign markets. He did not exclude the possibility that Russia will build a gas pipeline to the Asia-Pacific region. (Bloomberg) Oil Exports Fall Russia exported less crude oil as higher duties prompted companies to refine more oil domestically. The nation's natural gas output growth rate slowed on lower demand in Europe. Crude oil exports in the first 10 months of 2005 fell 0.9 percent from the same period last year, the government said Thursday in a statement on its web site. The country expects to raise 2005 crude output by 2.

Russia may lower the amount of stock domestic companies can convert to foreign-traded depositary notes for sale on foreign markets and introduce new rules for IPOs that would force firms to list simultaneously on foreign and Russian exchanges, the head of the financial markets watchdog said Thursday.

Estonia, one realizes after a few days in the abiding twilight of a Baltic winter, is not like other European countries. The first tip-off is the government""s Cabinet room, outfitted less like a ceremonial chamber than a control center.

Chechen Sisters Killed Two Chechen sisters have been shot and killed in Podolsk, just south of Moscow, Interfax reported Thursday. Yakha Bakayeva, 17, and her 16-year-old sister, Petimak, were killed by an unidentified assailant at the Podolsk train station on Wednesday, Interfax said. The girls' parents live in Podolsk with two other sisters and a brother. Police were investigating. (MT) Illness Called Psychological GROZNY -- A senior Chechen doctor said Thursday that the mysterious illness that has hit scores of schoolchildren appeared to be of psychological origin. At least 70 people, 53 of them children, fell ill this week in several towns with breathing trouble and headaches. Some officials said the symptoms could indicate a form of nerve-gas poisoning. But the head of Chechnya's narcology service, Musa Delsayev, said preliminary analysis pointed to a psychological cause and that ""the picture we are observing does not point to any form of illness whatsoever.

Leonid Tyagachyov was re-elected as president of the Russian Olympic Committee on Thursday, defeating an Olympic hero in a race that Russian media dubbed the first free election in the country’s sporting history.

The Culture and Press Ministry has drafted a bill that would turn state-controlled television into public television, Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday.

The Interior Troops will train hundreds of servicemen to fight in mountainous terrain, restructure its operational command in the North Caucasus and form two new battalions staffed with Chechnya natives to improve its capability to operate there, a senior commander told reporters on Thursday.

War crimes prosecutors on Thursday opposed a request by former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to visit a Moscow clinic, citing reports his family was in Russia and arguing he might not return to face trial.

Courts in Uzbekistan have given long jail sentences to a further 41 people found guilty in two new closed trials of taking part in an uprising in May in the town of Andijan, the Supreme Court said on Thursday.

Businesses have been getting in the Christmas spirit ever since Charles Dickens -- or rather the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future -- transformed Ebeneezer Scrooge overnight into a funky, modern CEO who treated his workers to a big slap-up meal and entertainment.